the Between
by pachei
Summary: Fafic for the Ark and the Xenocide Mission...follows Air Merry and Peter's niece, Halee, and their crossing with the Betweens.
1. Air Merry

Note: Okay, I tried to fix this up, so it is hopefully easier to read. Halee (hay-lee) is Peter's niece...and yeah. I haven't got too far on the plot, but, this is just kind of a prologue for what happens next. And...well..yeah. For those of you who don't know, this is a fanfic for Ben Jeapes' "the Ark" and "the Xenocide Mission".

ÒIÕm afraid I donÕt understand,Ó came Air MerryÕs voice through the translator.

ÒLook, how confusing can it get? Just...hold this,Ó his human companion muttered, holding the case out to the young Rustie, who obidiently took hold of it with his graspers. Deftly the young woman raised one of the colored pencils sheÕd take from the case Air Merry was now holding. 

ÒOkay, see this?Ó she asked him, smiling as he nodded. ÒOkay. Pretend this fingerÓÐÐshe wrapped her index finger around the pencilÐÐÓis one of your graspers. Now, watch carefully.Ó 

Slowly she wrote with the blue-hued pencil ÔHaleeÕ, then stood back, offering to take the pencil case from the little Rustie. ÒCan you copy that?Ó She asked him.

ÒI think so,Ó he replied, and dropped the case into ÒHaleeÕsÓ open hand, and stretched a grasper to grasp the pencil. "I copy that?" 

"Yup."

"Can you help?" The Rustie's big, round, childlike eyes peered up at Halee. She wincedÐÐnot only at their innocence, but the thought of touching a Rustie _grasper..._eww!

"Uh...sure," she decided meekly, and placed two fingers on the upper half of the pencil, avoiding the grasper best she could, but still near the little alien's grasper. "Move it like I do, okay? Or try."

"Okay." He replied, and moved the pencil shakily along with her light guidance. They did that a few times on the paper, before Air Merry insisted he do it himself. Halee watched proudly as the little Rustie shakily, but somewhat elegantly, wrote her name. "What does it say?"

"It says 'Halee'," she told him happily.

"Your name," he concluded, and she nodded. "Did I spell it right? Did I do it right?"

"Yes!" She laughed. She could pick out Air Merry's expressions better than most could through his translatpr because she had been staying with the Pride since his naming ceremony. With the rest of the Pride, particularily Air Merry's mother, she was helping raise him, teaching him a few extra things. 

"Can I say your name?" 

"Sure," Halee laughed, then stopped when she heard the little guy meekly ask: "Can you help me turn off the translator for a moment?"

"Umm...alright..." she moved over and pressed the button, wondering what idea had creeped into his extraterrestrial mind. The next thing she heard was a soft hissing-sound, that sounded roughly like "ssschau-nnnzkhep". When it stopped, he nodded, and she pressed the translator's button so it glowed green again. "Ha-lee," Air Merry confirmed through the translator. "Say it!"

"Ssschau-nnnzkhep," Halee tried.

Air Merry made a Rustie's expression of amusementÐÐsome sort of blank stare, mixed with a chirrring sound that the translator didn't bother with, making Halee guess it was an amused sound.

Abruptly, he stopped, and turned his head, flicking an ear to a faint noise. Looking in on them quietly, with that blank/amused stare was Air Quiet, and another, somewhat larger Rustie.

"Wood Merry!" Exclaimed Air Merry and leaped forward, leaving a smiling, proud, but fuddled Halee. The other Rustie and little Air Merry exchanged a few Rustie bits of language, mutually it appeared, as Air Quiet approached Halee. 

"Greetings, Ms. Kirton. I see you have been spending today with Air Merry again?" 

Halee nodded, and collected her things. "I'll, um, go back to Julia's now though."

"Oh, yes. Do tell her and your uncle I said 'hello'." Air Quiet gave a Rustie's smile, then turned way from her to son and quickener. Halee managed a smile at the Rustie's back, and exited quietly, strolling down the Rustie lane, towards her friend Julia's house. BesidesÐÐJulia was expecting her to help prepare dinner this evening. Maybe she could bring Air Merry over tomorrow afternoon, and show him how to prepare human food.


	2. the Hideaway

Note: Hope this is better than the first one. ;P This covers a little bit of the first presence of the Between.

Halee rolled over on her side and tossed her book onto the bed table, muttering to herself and rubbing her eyes. Lightly she touched her reading lamp and it flickered off, leaving her to pull up the covers of her small bed. Winters in these mountains were relatively warm, being that they were coastal, but tonight was a little chilly. Again Halee rolled over, and opened her eyes lightly to look at the stone floor, expecting to see the light from the full moon of the Roving--Traveller--, only to find a shadow across it, leaving little room for light.

Her heavy eyes shook off their sleepiness and she drew in a sharp breath--it was a deformed..._thing_...hovering in a crouch in the glass-less, screen-less window. Slowly, as slow and delayed as possible, Halee turned her eyes towards the window where they remained fixed.

Out of seemingly nowhere, two bright, pale yellow-green eyes tore into her mind, and then, yellowed teeth appeared, bared in a vicious grin. The thing was all but transparent--a dark shade, a shadow. Halee lay frozen, feeling cold creep up and down her spine, as her fear strangled her voice and mind. The eyes blinked and moved, turning to something behind her, shrinking back as if unsure--then something grabbed Halee--something strong that made her jump out of her icing, but something else slapped over her mouth and dragged her kicking and writhing out of the room.

She clamped her eyes shut and felt tears biting at her eyelids, ones of fear, ones of question--why _me? _Suddenly she was gently set down in a cramped space that smelt heavily of Rustie, and heard both a door shutting so softly she barely heard it, and her name, as soft as a night breeze in the late spring. "Halee," came the whisper.

Halee's eyes snapped open, stung by fading tears and blinded by the dark, and she wailed, "Oh, Julia!" and began to sob.

"It's alright, Hay," Julia said as she knelt down and hugged her friend tight, sniffing a little. "We're alright." Halee squeezed Julia, hearing her heart ram against the woman's chest, figuring that Julia had been just as scared as herself. 

"Where...where _are _we?" She asked quietly, pulling away to dry her eyes and nose with her nightshirt's sleeve, sniffing in the smell of Rustie.

"A Rustie hideaway, believe it or not," snorted Julia with a laugh.

"I see nothing amusing," came the flat voice of a Rustie's translator, making Halee jump like a startled rabbit.

Julia rolled her eyes, not caring if the Rustie's eyes could penetrate through the darkness. "Eye Light, you're right, nothing's amusing, and neither is anything visible. Aren't there any--"

A dim light flickered on. The Rustie's of the small residence were clustered on one end of the cramped compartment, and Julia and Halee on the other. Before Julia could say anything, or the Rustie dubbed Eye Light, Halee spoke up. "Why are you all in here?"

An uneasy quiet settled over the group. The youngest Rustie present, a little chubby 'foal'--as Halee thought to call them, since Rustie's resembled horses in...some...vague way--named Call Distant, shyly spoke up. "B-b-because _they _came." The translator accurately picked up the little guy's stutter.

"Who?" Halee asked, confused.

"Them things in the window," explained Julia with a scowl.

"XCs?" Questioned Halee again--she'd never seen one, but she'd heard about them.

"No," said Eye Light. "Something else. I don't know what. We'll have to wait till morning to speak with the rest of the Pride about them. Perhaps we'll even have to send a message to Arm Wild."

"O-r-r the O-o-ones w-w-who C-c-command," Call Distant pointed out, his mother nodding. 

"Call Distant is right. But maybe they were XCs...?" Call Mellow murmured through her own translator.

"No." Eye Light said firmly, looking Rustie-ly over at the two humans present. "They weren't XCs. They were...something, someone else."


End file.
